


Affianced in Blood

by LiveOakWithMoss



Series: Invested [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: ...I guess that's technically the case. yeah, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, Physical Trauma, Psychic Bond, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-27 07:46:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: Caranthir finds Finrod, mortally wounded, after the battle at Tol-in-Gaurhoth.





	Affianced in Blood

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. Obviously this entire AU is already hella canon divergent in that, well, Finrod and Caranthir survive the First Age, but note that in this version Beren and Luthien were unable to recover Finrod (or his body) after the fight in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

He does not know why he does it. Why he abruptly leaves in the middle of the night, saddles his horse, and sets out for the wilds. Perhaps it is the madness taking him, like it took the Ambarussa; like it sometimes takes his other brothers, one at a time (or in pairs.) It is a tickle in his brain, a scratch against his consciousness that is something like the twitch of insomnia, and something like… something like… Something he can’t put his finger on.

Caranthir only remembers when he sees the first bloody footprint.

_Something like foresight_.

He urges his horse on, though it shies at the blood now thick on the ground, and when he slides from its back, so fast he almost gets tangled in the stirrups, he knows exactly who he has been reminded of all this long night. Exactly who has been caught up in his mind.

_Finrod_.

He is lying against the leaf mold when Caranthir finds him, still as stone and white as death. He is naked but it takes Caranthir a moment to realize this, so thick is the blood upon him.

“Ingoldo!” Caranthir drops to his knees and cradles his cousin’s head, feeling gobbets of hair separating from flesh in his fingers. “What - How - ”

Finrod’s eyes open, bruised and bloodshot. A hideous sound comes from him, a croak of pain that might be “ _Draugluin_.”

“ _Fool_.” Caranthir bows over him. Perhaps he is already too late; how Finrod has dragged himself this far with his flesh sloughing off him like ill-fitting clothes is beyond him. “You bloody fool, what have you  _done?”_

“You came,” Finrod rasps, and at the terrible gurgle of his voice Caranthir’s shaking fingers locate the teethmarks at his throat. “You heard me.”

“Heard you?” The fear is constricting Caranthir’s chest almost too greatly to breathe, but he has to keep Finrod awake, has to keep him alive, and he keeps talking as he tears his cloak into strips. The tickle in the back of his head comes again and he shakes it impatiently; he cannot be distracted now. “When? What did you say?”

“‘You bloody fool, what have you done,’” says Finrod, and faints as Caranthir binds the first of his wounds.

 

* * *

 

He wakes in the rough camp Caranthir has made. A fire is crackling beside him and warming the right side of his body. The left side feels icy cold in comparison and Finrod shivers spasmodically, causing Caranthir to look up. There are purple shadows beneath his eyes, his cragged features drawn stark in the flickering light of the fire. Finrod expects to be cursed a fool again, smiles in anticipation of the familiar chiding words, but the fear and relief are too tight in Caranthir’s expression to make way for remonstration.

Finrod realizes, in attempting to, that he cannot speak.

“Lie still,” says Caranthir. His hands are red with blood and so are Finrod’s but his wounds have been bandaged, herbs pressed to the spots where infection threatens its terrible heat. He has been sewn back together, his broken pieces held fast by tiny stitches in a beautiful hand; a tapestry of healing in blue and green thread.

“Thank you,” he tries to say as Caranthir lifts his head and holds water to his lips, but his tongue no longer lets him. 

“Don’t talk,” says Caranthir, and kisses his forehead gently, so gently that tears slide down Finrod’s cheeks.

 

* * *

 

Caranthir is afraid to move Finrod in this condition, terrified to lose him, and they stay there for days beyond Caranthir’s count as he tries to put the fallen King of Nargothrond back together. He runs out of the blue and green thread he once used on Finrod’s mantles and so knots his flesh with crimson instead. “Melding the houses,” he grunts, as he looks at the patchwork he has made of Finrod’s skin. “Wouldn’t our fathers be proud.”

He catches Finrod’s eyes on him and flushes the color of his stitches. “Don’t read into that,” he says gruffly. “I mean. Unless you want to?”

Finrod still cannot speak but as Caranthir wipes the blood from a freshly opened wound, Finrod paints his answer in scarlet on Caranthir’s chest.

It is no wedding, not really, not in the abandoned clearing in the woods far from family and tradition, Finrod too weak to do anything the books would have them do to be wed, but they both count it so.

And make up for it later.


End file.
